The Damned Lies Project

Wherein graduation commences and suspicions grow

The next day was high school graduation.  My clone was under strict orders to stay home and out of sight.  Since I was there when he woke up, I was clearly the “real” me and the one in command.  He was the copy and so was on bitch duty.  He didn’t respond well to this at first, but my logic was irrefutable.  Also, I wouldn’t let him out of the plastic tube until he agreed.

I drove over to Bruce’s house before graduation.  My family was driving to the ceremony later.  All graduates had to get there early and stand in a prearranged line.  I got dressed before I left for Bruce’s.  My high school eschewed the traditional cap and gown in favor of something a little more classy.  All the men were required to wear white tuxes, complete with black bow tie, while the ladies were required to wear white dresses.  While in quick moments it seemed like a scene from a GQ ad, overall it worked. Read the rest of this entry »

Wherein a clone is conceived of and conceived.

I replaced myself with a clone one summer.

It was the summer between high school and college.  Graduation was next weekend, and while I had a summer job, my life was otherwise uneventful.  Friends began to get apartments near school, threw themselves into summer jobs to make college money, or disappeared on their own adventures.  I also wanted to disappear too, but I needed to make money over the summer.  My parents would probably freak out too.

I don’t remember where the clone idea came from.  Read the rest of this entry »

Wherein douchebaggery is exposed and Baron Munchausen gets mad props.

After a few days, Bruce finally visited me in the hospital.  He claims he visited me already; he says I was still out of it due to my concussion.  I don’t remember him visiting me, so as far as I’m concerned, this was the first time.

He apologized for setting me up with Deborah.  But he had heard about how I orchestrated the fight with Becky, and made an impromptu escape from the scene of the crime.  Because of that, he wasn’t quite so sympathetic.  I tried offering my reasons, justifying the need for a girl-on-girl fistfight in a nice restaurant, as well as my need for a low profile.  He just shook his head and wondered why I was that way. Read the rest of this entry »

Wherein I am told the vomiting is inevitable, I bow to peer pressure, and I discover a new favorite drink.

I went to my first metal concert when I was fourteen.  It was a Pantera/Skid Row show at Madison Square Garden.  One of my older brothers was taking me.  A metal fan for years, this was his way of inducting me into the culture.  He was just glad I wasn’t a Madonna fan like another brother.

“Since it’s your first metal concert, you gotta get drunk and throw up,” he said.  His two friends nodded and grunted.  This was the way it had been, and this is the way it was going to be.  The metal gods had dictated the law, and we must follow it. Read the rest of this entry »

Wherein I regale you with tales of metal shows past.

“I once knew a man named Ed… who used to dance with the dead.  DEAD.  SKIN.  MASK!”

I was seventeen years old and at a Slayer concert.  My first and only Slayer concert, to be exact.  I’ve always been a big fan of metal off and on, but there was a period during my teenage years where I had a love affair with the very heavy metal – death metal, black metal, and anything angry and moshable.  This led me to Slayer’s Rein in Blood album, and then to Seasons in the Abyss, which they were currently playing songs off of.

I’m not sure why the hospital made me reminisce about heavy metal.  Maybe because it was so unlike the deathly clinical silences, the serenely white walls, and the undanceable beat of the hospital machines.  Maybe the isolation made me angry.  Maybe I just wanted to hear some fucking metal. Read the rest of this entry »

Wherein the affairs of imaginary people are thoroughly discussed.

I used to tell people that I had four brothers, but they always pointed out to me that my parents only had four children.  Rather than chalk this up to simple mathematical miscalculation or the likelihood I didn’t know what I was talking about, I instead believed that I had a fourth brother, one that other people weren’t aware of or that they simply never talked about.

I began to imagine various facts about this fourth brother.  Read the rest of this entry »

Wherein the birthing process is described and old dogs are cranky.

After the accident, I lay in traction at the hospital.  A broken leg, a few broken ribs, and a concussion.  I was told I was lucky to be alive.  I felt lucky I didn’t wake up brain damaged and drooling – I’d find that worse than death.  The concussion made things interesting for a week, then I came to my senses.

Living in a full body cast isn’t much fun.  Between nurse visits and crappy TV, there wasn’t much to do.  I took this time to reflect on my life, or at least my life how I choose to remember it.

*  *  *

I was born on a Monday the color of wet newspaper.  Read the rest of this entry »

Wherein our not-so-humble narrator is introduced and things go poorly.

The date was going poorly.  She was telling me that she collects commemorative plates.  Like dinner plates, but decorative ones that you see on commercials.  I was sitting there thinking that either she is a pure old-fashioned Americana fan – the kind who has strawberry shortcake dolls and pewter unicorns all over the walls of their house, or that she was once a total stoner – unemployed and up at two in the morning, higher than a penthouse on Park Place, watching commercials for the Franklin Mint sandwiched that were between Jesus rock compilations and Girls Gone Wild.  I wasn’t sure which she was, and neither was appealing.  On the plus side, it was allowing me to focus on something other than her yammering.

Her name was Deborah, as in Deb-OR-ah, the OR heavily stressed, as in “coffee OR tea,” which was just as well, since she was a flight attendant.  Everyone knows the stereotype of flight attendants being “easy” because they are always staying in strange cities and get lonely.  When I first heard that about her, I was a little excited, but I began to wonder if other parts of the flight attendant lifestyle spills over to her regular life.  While we’re in bed, will she ask if I need another pillow or a blanket?  Does she have a button above her bed with a tiny picture of a flight attendant?  I’d press the button, it would light up, and then she would roll over, press the button to turn it off, and ask if I needed a beverage or anything.  “Uh, no,” I’d say, “I was actually wondering if you’d do that thing with your mouth again…”

Read the rest of this entry »